The Workbook Approach:
Getting New Users up to Speed in a HEP Offline Environment

Abstract

The Workbook approach is an efficient way to introduce members of a
HEP collaboration to their collaboration's offline environment. It
was first developed in SLD where offline experts were losing too much
time on individual user assistance. The approach was extremely
successful there and has since been replicated for BaBar.

Information is presented in the form of a workbook, a connected series
of exercises. Imagine the world of offline software as a workshop
full of tools. The workbook has the user pick up each tool in turn,
do something simple and useful with that tool, and then put that tool
down and move on to the next.